Beauty buzzwords 101

7 October 2022

By Fashion Quarterly

Anti-ageing is so passé. From ingredients to current trends guaranteed to become mainstays in your beauty routine, we share the skincare lingo you need to know now.

Skinimalism

If you’ve grown weary of a beauty cabinet overflowing with unused products, you can rejoice as we’re seeing a clear shift away from the endless-step beauty routine. Emma Hobson, director of education for Dermalogica Asia Pacific, explains ‘skinimalism’ is moving away from the popular Korean-inspired multi-step routine.

“With time pressures back on people, coupled with a shift to a simpler, less complicated life, skinimalism has emerged to create a daily routine with a concise line-up of multi-taskers,” she says. “It supports the time-poor and is a way to help balance the budget.”

While slathering on every serum in reach might seem a way to reach your skin goals, too much skincare can have an opposite effect. “Simplifying your routine is great for anyone with sensitised, irritated skin that can be reactive to a more complex, active skincare mix,” says Hobson.

Next Generation Retinols

With its incomparable rejuvenating effects, retinol is essential in any thorough skincare routine, but it can leave skin a little unhappy, dry and irritated. Fortunately, we’re already starting to see a new wave of retinols come to the forefront of the beauty world.

“There is some exciting research and development in ingredient complexes and how our favourite actives are formulated,” explains Hobson. “With next generation retinols soon to emerge in the market, we can expect formulas with superior results, which can be used by a wider range of people who commonly can’t tolerate very active retinols while respecting the health of the skin.”

Personalised Formulations

It’s hard not to feel like most skincare offerings take a one-size-fits-all approach to formulations. This can be frustrating given we all have unique skin concerns and problems we want to address when we reach for our favourite serum.

The cookie-cutter approach could soon be out as personalised formulas and digital dermatology becomes a go-to in the beauty world. Recently launched skincare brand Mutual brings truly bespoke beauty to New Zealand via a digital self-assessment that uses an advanced AI algorithm with more than 70,000 data points. The result is poles apart from a mind-boggling 15-step routine; instead, you receive a personalised all-in-one product that targets your specific concerns.

Professor Vanessa Pinheiro, one of the pharmacists involved in the research and development of Mutual, believes the customisation trend is set to reshape the cosmetic world. “Consumers have long been searching for tailor-made skincare, and Mutual embodies that solution,” she says.

Genuine Sustainability

Greenwashing and cleanwashing — claiming products are better for you because they use ‘clean’ ingredients and avoid others — has become rife within the beauty industry. Because there’s very little regulation around what constitutes such beauty products, it can be tricky to tell what’s good for your skin and the environment.

However, Hobson assures us change is afoot. “My favourite skincare trend is not about a specific formulation, though there are some inspiring innovations about to hit the market in the coming year,” she says. “It’s the shift to product manufacturers using sustainable packaging, the expansion of the refill concept, and the use of eco-friendly, sustainably-sourced ingredients.

Anti-inflammatory Skincare

Forget about anti-ageing this and that; inflammation is what we need to tackle to achieve radiant, healthy skin. Instead of employing an array of heavy-hitting skincare products that speed up the skin’s natural renewal process, we will see more products that fight inflammation and boost both the health of the skin and the skin barrier.

As a result, many of the anti-inflammatory ingredients we usually expect to find in our pantries will become more commonplace in our moisturisers, serums and cleansers. Think turmeric exfoliators, green tea-based eye creams and skin-soothing cucumber. And because beautiful, resilient skin starts from within, anti-inflammatory supplements will become essential in our routines.